ADHD, Diet and Your Child

One morning I was visiting a school to do a clinical observation for a student when my mouth dropped. What I saw before me seemed like nothing out of the ordinary for the students and teacher but there it was at 8:30 a.m. as clear as can be. A child was sitting at his desk, eating a pastrami sandwhich, chips and drinking a can of soda.  When I asked the teacher what the school snack policy was, I was told there was none.

So the question I asked myself is who is really to blame for this problem? Is it our  school system for having unclear snack policies or is it the parent’s fault for not feeding the child a substantial breakfast and sending the child to school without a more balanced meal?

When determining a clinical diagnosis in regards to a child’s behavior, one of the very first questions I would ask is “ what do they eat?”  The amount of times the response from the teacher or parents was “ what does that have to do with how he/she is misbehaving” shows how much we all need to learn about how our diet truly can have an effect on our behaviors.  Did you know that good nutrition and other important health habits are best established in childhood? If not, here are some facts to look over carefully.

7% of school age children are diagnosed as ADHD.   (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)

ADHD is two or three times more common in boys than in girls.   (Center for Science in the Public Interest)

1 child in 4 is obese and nearly 50% of obese adolescents remain obese as adults.     (International Journal of Obesity)

By the age of 12, an estimated 70% of our children have developed the beginning stages of hardening of the arteries.    (Bogalusa Heart Study)

What do each of the researched facts above have in common? Each medical challenges can be diminished by becoming a well educated consumer of the foods you are buying and preparing for you and your family.

ADHD, also called Hyperactivity or Attention-Deficit Disorder is mainly exhibited with symptoms in children such as reduced attentiveness and concentration, excessive levels of activity, distractibility, and impulsiveness. ADHD takes an enormous toll on children and their families. The child falls behind in school, loses self-esteem, and needs extra help. A family may need to cope with the need to focus the child’s attention on essential activities or restrain his or her impulsive behavior, while dealing with the unsettling fact that the child is not always welcome in other people’s homes, in play groups, or on teams. (cspinet.org)

Children these days eat and drink too much sugar, consume too many empty calories, and don’t eat enough of the good things they need – especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Some children can have severe reactions to food additives and exhibit signs of ADHD and even autism when they eat additives. These days parents also need to rule out the possibility of food allergies when it comes to atypical behaviors of their children.

Imagine sitting in class after a breakfast, snack or lunch that contains some food that you may be allergic to. Perhaps some of the behaviors that we are now witnessing in children are due to the increased sensitivity that they have to some ingredient or preservative. Even if that isn’t the case, it still begs of us to increase the overall nutrition for ourselves and our families.

So what can you do if you are concerned your child may have ADHD and want to explore options you can change yourself?

• Become informed consumers about the basics of food and it’s preparation.
• Stick to homemade, whole, fresh produce, dairy, meat or fish as much as possble and avoid take out or prepared foods where you aren’t aware of the ingredients.
• Stay away from caffeine containing products as one study reported a 252% increase in ADHD scores (Connor’s Scale) when children drank less than one can of caffeinated colas.
• Limit sugar containing products which also have a profound effect on your child’s behavior. When a teacher is walking the halls with foot long pixie sticks as a reward for his students, although his intentions are well meaning, he is contributing to his classroom’s behavioral problems.
•  Eliminate food coloring, additives and preservatives as much as possible as these have also been linked to behaviors connected to ADHD. A September 2007 study released in Time Magazine shows that “a variety of common food dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate — an ingredient in many soft drinks, fruit juices, salad dressings and other foods — causes some children to become more hyperactive and distractible than usual” (time.com). When the report was released in the British medical journal The Lancet,  Britain’s Food Standards Agency issued an advisory to parents to limit their children’s intake of preservatives and food additives. This study was the first to show a concrete connection between food additives and hyperactivity.
•  Get involved with your child’s school and PTA to  help makes change to their food and snack policies so that your child can get the most out of his educational experience.  Encourage them to increase the education for their students about healthy diet and nutrition and only serve well balanced meals, that are low in saturated fat, if there is a hot lunch program.
•  Try whole food based supplements for you and your child that only have extensive and reputable research backing up the study. Learn more how your child’s diet can affect their health and what other simple steps you can take to improve your families health.

Hopefully, with continued education and discussions, we can find ways to increase our overall knowledge about the connections between diet and ADHD that will hopefully contribute to the improvement of your child’s behaviors and lead to long standing changes in your families overall health and wellbeing.